Walk with the Dead

When someone dies things always get a little bit hazy for everyone involved. There are 3 different types of people whom are affected by someone’s death.

1. The griever – when the person whom has died is someone you know personally and are really close to then you are hit with that on a personal level. It’s horrible and dealing with it can be the hardest shit you ever have to deal with, but you do it anyway, life has to go on.

2. The thinker – this is when someone you’ve heard of or know very briefly has died, like you knew of them on social media or seen them at a party once but you didn’t really know them. Their death hits you in such an unexpected way, you begin to think of the friendship you could have had and why you didn’t get to know them. You then realise you never have that chance because they’re gone now. It then spans into this ball of thoughts. What am I doing with my life? Am I wasting my time? Does he even love me? Etc etc etc. That’s hard to deal with but death makes you re-evaluate your whole existence. It’s a shit storm.

3. The who the fuck cares guy - we all know someone who doesn’t care when someone else dies, I mean it’s horrible but that’s just the way some people are. And sadly with the state the world is currently in, the normal reaction to death is either a brief 1 and then soon after, a decline into 3 until it fades away.

I didn’t know Joanna at all, she was quiet and kept to herself but she was young and she deserved better. She lost her mom and dad at the beginning of the outbreak and found Lynn not long after this shit show took off. Lynn treated her like a daughter and tried to be a best friend to the girl. She was only 15 years old, she should have been worried about what boys were interested in her and how hard her math homework this week was. Not learning how to mutilate a reanimated corpse.

My gaze fell onto the wooden cross that had been planted into the ground and sighed loudly. It still hurt to know this is how we are gonna end. We don’t have a choice anymore. That’s what scares me the most about this world now and when it comes to my own end I don’t think I won’t go out fighting. I’ll be ready.

“Alice…” I heard from behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw Vic standing a few feet away. I turned my head back to the makeshift grave for Joanna and furrowed my eyebrows at it. “Are you okay?” He asked as he took a few steps forward and stopped beside me.

“As okay as I can be in this world.” I shrugged effortlessly.
Vic let out an exasperated sighed, earning a look from me. “What?” He asked looking at me.

“Nothing, what’s wrong with you?” I questioned him looking out into the forest in front of us.

“I’m so tired.” He mumbled, rubbing his callused hands over his face.

“Go to sleep, it’s almost sun down.” I pointed out to him. “Anyway you’re not on night watch so you don’t have to stay up.” I looked down at the ground and kicked a stone around.

He shrugged and then kicked the stone away from my foot completely. “I would love to be able
to sleep but I can’t. Every time I close my eyes I see shit that makes me want to put a gun to my head. This world is so ugly now and I can’t handle it much more.” He said with very little emotion in his voice at all. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Listening to someone verbally give up makes you feel so helpless. “Wait, no you’re not gonna just give up like that.” I turned to face him. He looked at me with a confused look on his face.

“Why not? I mean what difference does it really make to you?” He spat at me. It kinda hurt to hear him speak to me like that because I was also so nice to him, for the most part any way.

“Anyway, you’ll always have Ben so you’ll be just fine without me.” He said immaturely.
I rolled my eyes so damn hard. Is he for fucking real? “Sorry Mr Jealousy but that shit isn’t gonna work with me. What is it that you want me to do? What do you want me to say? You lied to me about my life and now you’re all suicidal because your life feels pointless?” I hissed at him. “Well, no you don’t get to do that. I’m not letting you. I don’t care if I don’t remember you or whatever the fuck went on with us. Who is to say I’ll never get those memories back and then you’re gone? What if I remember and you’ve given up?”

He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me. “Alice…” He whispered.

“No Vic it’s not fair. I’ve literally been put through emotional turmoil in the last few weeks and now you’re being like this? Shit if you go then fuck it I might as well go too because what else am I supposed to do? I know you mean something to me. I can feel that but you don’t know how horrible it feels to not remember why!” I continued ranting at him.

“Please just calm down.” He pleaded with me, putting his hand over my mouth to shut me up. “Shit I’m sorry I had a fucking moment of weakness, I won’t do it again.” He said looking into my eyes intensely. I stared back, trying to trigger something. Trying so hard to find out what he meant to me.

“Good.” I mumbled against his hand. He smiled from ear to ear and removed his hand from my face. I decided to sit down and watch the sun set over the tree tops. Vic followed my actions and we sat there, knees touching but keeping the atmosphere around us quiet except the last pieces of nature still intact.

We sat like that until the sun had completely gone and was replaced with stars shining bright in the sky. “One time when you were in high school you came over to my house looking for Mike because he didn’t turn up to school that day and you were pissed off because it was the day to write down who you were attending prom with and Mike promised he would go with you so that you weren’t alone. Once you got to mine you found out that Mike had drunk himself into a fucking hangover coma.” I looked at his face and saw the small smile creep on it while he told the story. “You found him in his bed crying because he couldn’t stop throwing up and you were so pissed off at him for it. I fucking found you slapping shit out of his arm. That was funny to me.” He chuckled.

“Shit, what happened after that?” I asked.

Vic stopped laughing and smiled slightly. “I took you back to school and offered to put my name down with yours even thought I was in college already. My brother fucked up and it wasn’t your fault so I offered to take you to prom.” He told me.

My eyebrows rose up my forehead, I was shocked. “That was so nice of you.” I couldn’t help
but smile.

“Mike didn’t recover from that hangover for like 3 days and my mom was so pissed off but you got to go to prom and that was all that mattered.” He looked up at the stars.

“Did we have fun?” I asked. He looked back down with a blank expression.

“I didn’t take you in the end actually.” He looked away.

“Why not?” I pretty much demanded.

“Some guy on the football team asked you a week before prom and you said yes. You went with him and that was important to you so I was obviously cool with that.” He shrugged.

I could feel my face turn from happy to sad in like 0.3 seconds flat. I got an idea though and stood up. I held my hand out in front of his face. He raised an eyebrow at it and I rolled my eyes. “I owe you at least one dance for being my hero, even though I threw it back in your face.

"I’m sorry.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled himself up off the ground, I put my arms around his neck and he rested his on my waist. “There’s no music though.” He chuckled.

“Yeah there isn’t but I mean if you wanna die tonight then I can arrange something.” I grinned at him.

We began slow dancing, actually rather awkwardly. Music is essential. But we tried. I looked at him and he burst out laughing, sending me into a fit of laughter also. “Thank you for trying to
make me feel better.” He said getting serious for a second.

“We all need it from time to time but we can’t give up. Humanity can’t end like this.” I frowned.

“We need to fight this, I can’t give up on this yet.” I told him. “And you’re not giving up either.” I said looking him dead in the eyes. He stared back, it was the most intense thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

“You two should get some sleep.” Ben’s voice said from nowhere. We both pulled apart as quickly as we could, I felt my cheeks flush red out of embarrassment.

“Goodnight Ben.” I mumbled as I walked by him.

I walked over to my cabin and opened the door. I turned around for a second and looked over at Vic’s. He looked over at me for a second and we stared for what felt like an eternity but I had to break the gaze. I guess it’s not hard to figure out how I felt about him before I lost my memory…

Notes

HEY GUYS!!!
okay sorry i have not updated in so long but there has been so much happening in my life. I'm finally back though and this story has a long way to go!!!!